Jewellery shines in UK shopping centres
New research has found that jewellery brands led the way for sales growth in UK shopping centres in the first quarter of 2015.
According to the study by international real estate advisor Savills, the category saw a sales increase of 12% in the period with a rise of 7.2% over the last 12 months.
Other categories showing strong sales growth in the first quarter included sporting goods at 5%, food and beverages at 4.7%, and childrenswear and value retail, both at 2.7%.
Categories showing the biggest declines over the same period were music, books, games and DVDs, where sales declined by 8.2%, and pawnbrokers, department stores, and grocery stores where sales fell by 7.7%, 6.7% and 5.7% respectively.
After jewellery, sporting goods enjoyed the highest growth at 7% over the past 12 months, followed by accessories at 5.9%. Despite a poor first quarter, the music, books, games and DVD category showed 3.2% growth over the year which Savills attributed to the recent re-birth of vinyl sales.
Meanwhile, electrical sales declined by 13.1% over the 12 month period followed by homewares with a decline of 9.4%. Childrenswear sales dropped by 5.1% despite a strong first quarter performance.
Stephen Toal, head of property management research at Savills, said: “The growth of jewellery shows that consumers are still willing to pay for higher value items where good range and service are provided – this is evidenced by the likes of H Samuel and Ernest Jones recently reporting their biggest like-for-like sales increase in 13 years.
“However, despite inflation being at 0% and shop prices falling in general, this has not triggered significant sales growth across all sectors. This may be down to consumers becoming more considered in their purchasing and/or putting money aside in expectation of future rate rises.”
